Software Information |
Who's Watching What You Type?
If someone entered your home, uninvited and installed numerous cameras and listening devices in order to monitor your activities, you would quite rightly be outraged. While such a situation, unless you are living in the Big Brother House, would be considered ridiculous, the same cannot be said for the humble home computer. Recently released research alarmingly shows that home PC's are increasingly likely to host software which can watch each and every keystroke the user inputs. According to the research compiled from an audit conducted jointly by the software firm, WebRoot and services provider, EarthLink, the average home PC hosts 28 so-called spyware programs. Whilst the worst examples of spyware are written by virus writers to steal passwords and hijack computers to launch "denial of service" attacks against web-servers, the vast majority are used to collate marketing information and then target advertising according to the end-users web surfing habits. The WebRoot/EarthLink audit surveyed more than 1.5 million PC's during the last 12 months and discovered an amazing 41 million incidents of spyware; adware, Trojans, tracking cookies and other undesirable programs. Most of these programs are loaded into the computer memory when the PC is started up. From here, the program will work silently, often giving no clues as to its existence. However, unexplained browser window pop-up's, often advertising adult services and mysterious alterations to the browsers homepage setting are more often than not an indication that spyware is present and active on a computer. One particular piece of spyware, which is proving to be very expensive for many home users, is that of Trojan Diallers. Diallers, often without any warning to the end-user, hangs up the current net connection and then automatically reconnects using a Premium Rate telephone number, thus running up huge telephone bills. The activities of companies using this technology as a revenue stream are currently under investigation in the UK by government watchdogs. A hard-disk and memory overflowing with spyware used to be one of the unfortunate consequences of visiting sex and adult orientated sites; a kind of eSTD. Like most Internet marketing technologies, from the pop-up to the pop-under and the first snowball of Spam, spyware began life serving the adult industry. Then, just like pop-up, spyware filtered through all aspects of ecommerce. In an interview to the BBC, David Moll, CEO of WebRoot, said that spyware has now become so common across the whole of the Internet, that it can be contracted from nearly anywhere. So-called "drive-by downloads" are now responsible for most infections of spyware. The term "drive-by" refers to the casualness of the infection. By simply visiting an ordinary webpage a user can unwittingly initiate an automatic download of spyware onto their computer. There are no clues and no warnings. In a recent, carefully controlled and closed demonstration, it took me less than 20 minutes to create a spyware program and embed it into a webpage. Using colleagues who had previously been made aware of the nature of the experiment, I invited them to take a look at this "special" but very ordinary looking webpage. Within seconds of visiting this webpage, the spyware went to work taking a snapshot of their hard disk, a snapshot of their Favourites folder and a copy of their browsing history. Before they had even finished reading the webpage, the spyware was already transferring their information to my server. It's as easy as that! Equally that same code could be manipulated to perform a total trash of the hard disk or some other equally miserable and criminal act. Speaking to the BBC, David Moll explained. "Some (spyware programs) lurk on misspelled URLs and strike those that type faster than their fingers can carry them. As a result you do not end up where you expect to be." Alarmingly, users do not even need to visit a website to contract spyware. The preview window in Microsoft's Outlook Express allows emails containing HTML and any other code which can be placed on a normal webpage, to be loaded, without warning. Companies looking to implant spyware using the "drive-by" principal are regularly exploiting this glaringly obvious flaw in the design of Outlook Express. "If you get one piece of spyware, you will get five because the business model says they pay each other to pass on information about victims," said Mr Moll. Thankfully anti-spyware/adware programs such as Ad-Aware (free) and WebRoot's own offering, Spy Sweeper can clean up a PC and even help prevent further infections, but just like anti-virus software, anti-spyware software needs to be kept up-to-date to remain effective. In addition to providing software solutions to this problem, legislators too are seeking to end this electronic intrusion. In the USA an anti-spyware bill is moving towards approval in Congress. If successfully implemented, this bill will force firms who wish to use spyware to first receive permission from the end-user before it is installed. But even before any new laws come into place, spyware makers are already working on next generation coding which keep their programs intact and operational?.perhaps even on your PC. Related Links: WebRoot Spyware Audit http://www.webroot.com/services/spyaudit_03.htm Ad-Aware http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ WebRoot http://www.webroot.com/ About The Author Robert Palmer is CEO of deskNET Communications www.desknet.co.uk the first affordable alternative to opt-in email marketing and newsletters. With over 20 years professional experience in software development, Robert is a leading architect in the development of the emerging Net technology, One-2-Many Broadcasting software.
MORE RESOURCES: Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting |
RELATED ARTICLES
Great Plains Dexterity Development: FAQ Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains is Dexterity-written application and currently we see increased interest for Great Plains customers to do in-house Dexterity development and customization. Dexterity itself is written on C programming language and its initial architecture was based on the Graphical and Database platform independence, which C programming language was believed to provide. The Bluebird Project The objective for Zandi Digital is to make available clever programs to end-users that want and need something more diverse. Bluebird is the current application being developed by Zandi Digital. Easy Guide to RAID Recovery What is RAID RECOVERY?RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. It is a method of combining several hard drives into one unit. How to Upgrade Dexterity Customization - Tips for IT Manager If you have Microsoft Great Plains and support it for your company and have light or heavy Great Plains customization, written in Dexterity - you need to know your options in upgrading Great Plains or migrating it from ctree/Pervasive to MS SQL/MSDE.Great Plains Dexterity is proprietary programming language/environment, which was created in early 1990-th to provide platform / database / graphical interface independence for Mac and Windows based Great Plains Dynamics. Microsoft Great Plains in Construction & Building - Implementation & Customization Highlights Microsoft Great Plains could be tuned and setup to fit most of horizontal markets. You can deploy third party modules or build your own custom logic in Great Plains Dexterity. What Stands Behind The Software Description? With thousands of web pages added to the Net every day, it's getting more and more frustrating both to submit the information to the attention of those, who are interested in it and to find the information one needs.The problem is even aggravated with the fact that customers become more exigent to the products they are offered. ERP Implementation: Success Factors As seeing large number of implementations - in our case these are Microsoft Business Solutions Products: Great Plains, MS CRM, Navision - we would like to give you our opinion on what should you consider to do to secure implementation success. These principles should work as for large corporation as well as for midsize and even small business. Great Plains Dexterity: Customizations & Source Code Programming Great Plains Software Dynamics, Dynamics C/S+, eEnterprise were written on GPS proprietary programming language and development environment - Great Plains Dexterity. When Microsoft bought Great Plains Software, Dynamics was renamed into Microsoft Great Plains, but Dexterity is still the architectural base, there were trends to move MS Great Plains to . Microsoft Business Solutions Products Selection: ERP, CRM, Retail Management Let's first look at your ERP system selection (without Retail Solution). Your options are:Microsoft Great Plains. Crystal Reports - Geterogeneus databases: SQL Server, Oracle, Unidata, Btrieve - Tips For Developer Crystal Reports is the most flexible tool on the market and it has market recognition. Multiple software vendors offer Crystal Reports as the main reporting tool: Microsoft, Best Software, Oracle to name a few. Microsoft Great Plains e-Commerce - additional considerations for programmer Microsoft Great Plains, designed back in 1990th as database transferable and graphical platform independent ERP application - Great Plains Dynamics/Dynamics C/S+/eEnterprise. For eCommerce developer the most important is to understand Great Plains tables structure and business processes in Sales Order Processing, Accounts Receivables, Inventory Control (inventory items allocation, backordering, etc), posting to Bank Reconciliation and General Ledger. Microsoft Great Plains Reporting - Overview for Developer Looks like Microsoft Great Plains becomes more and more popular, partly because of Microsoft muscles behind it. Now it is targeted to the whole spectrum of horizontal and vertical market clientele. Computer Phones - Facts and Fallacies The stakes are high when considering security, privacy, and savings, and the old adage, "look before you leap" might be a more judicial approach when searching for a computer phone provider, aka VoIP (voice over internet protocol).FACTS? PC phones (VoIP) can save individuals and businesses up to 80% on current phone bills, regardless of whether calls are made from PC to landlines or mobile phones. Looking for an Alternative to Microsoft Office? You Should Be! Now is the time to look at an alternative to Microsoft Office.Are you locked into using Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint? Are you spending extra because you need a database, and Access does not come with the basic Office package?Well, the time has come to look at alternatives, or at least the one I¡¦ll discuss here in a few moments. Huddle Up; Groupware on Three It could just be me, but my experiences with document collaboration remind me of a football game. It sounds crazy, I know, but working with a group and sending emails off to other members of the group caries with it that familiar uneasy sensation of Thanksgiving Day football games, where I often play quarterback and just as often wonder whether members of my family will catch the pass, and if they do, what they will do with the ball. Theres Gold in Your Websites Server Log Many Webmasters have never bothered to view their website's server log. Ignoring your server log is like flying with a blind pilot. Microsoft CRM for Large Corporation - Security Microsoft Business Solutions CRM proved to be reliable solution in the whole spectrum of industries and market niches: transportation & logistics, education, recruiting & placement, supply chain management, pharmaceutical, oil & gas, aerospace & defense, manufacturing, wholesale & retail. When corporation is looking into CRM application to choose from - one of the fist questions is security. Microsoft CRM Conversation Gateway: VoIP - Implementation & Customization Microsoft CRM is winning market share step-by-step from such the traditional CRM providers as Siebel, Saleslogix. In this article we'll show Microsoft Business Solutions CRM potential in the VoIP direction. Spyware Protection: A Must for Any Home Computer Now that spyware is the single most dangerous threat to home computers connected to the internet today, getting your hands on some sort of spyware and adware protection is critical. Spyware has outpaced computer viruses in its prevalence, and in the kind of damage it can do to your system. Spyware - The Internet Devil Of Our Times! Spyware and Adware infest over 90 percent of computers in use today. Internet linked computers has made it easy for spybots, adware, and trojans to infiltrate and compromise online privacy. |
home | site map | contact us |